GOPers pile on W.H. on pipeline

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner added to Thursday's GOP bashing of President Barack Obama's efforts to block a Keystone XL amendment to the Senate transportation bill.

Citing POLITICO’s reporting that the president is personally rallying Democratic opposition to Sen. John Hoeven’s (R-N.D.) pro-Keystone amendment, McConnell said he was shocked to learn that Obama is trying to thwart “the biggest private-sector job-creation projection in our country.”

Story Continued Below

"It's incomprehensible to me that the president of the United States, I read, is actually lobbying against [the] Keystone pipe amendment," McConnell said in his opening remarks on the Senate floor Thursday morning.

"Frankly, it's hard to even comprehend how out of touch, how completely out of touch he is on this issue,” McConnell continued. “Think about it: At a moment when millions are out of work, gas prices are literally skyrocketing and the Middle East is in turmoil, we've got a president who is up making phone calls trying to block a pipeline here at home. It's really almost unbelievable.”

Meanwhile, Boehner expressed astonishment through his press office and on Twitter, tweeting: “POTUS lobbying Dems to reject 20,000 new American #KXL pipeline jobs, send them to China.”

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 10:55 a.m. on March 8, 2012.